5 Power Principles For An Irresistible Landing Page

Imagine you’re standing in a crowded market, bustling with activity and noise.

There are thousands of voices shouting in competition. But instead of hawking fresh vegetables or designer clothes, they’re peddling the benefits of a mini-course on affiliate marketing, a free report about IT security, or a guide on how to make $1,000 in 10 days.

That’s the market your landing page is sitting in – one lonely voice amongst millions.

Each page has their own offer, and each is trying to get attention or attract an audience.

And just like a market, people might be flocking to a handful of certain stands (or pages), while others stay quiet and hope things magically turn around.

If you’re reading this, maybe your “stand’ is struggling.

Perhaps visitors arrive on your landing page, take a 5-second look around, and then run for the hills. Maybe they’re on the verge of doing what you’re asking… but something’s holding them back. 

(If you’re struggling to get visitors to your page, you might have a traffic problem… but that’s a dilemma for another time!)

That said, your page isn’t alone. Most landing pages out there spend more time gathering dust than leads. So what are the pages that are sucking up leads hand over fist doing right? There’s one big difference: the winners are using the power principles like those below… and the losers aren’t.

Wait, this isn’t about a great landing page!

That’s why this principle is so important. An irresistible landing page isn’t just about fantastic copy, it’s about an offer people simply can’t refuse. If you have that, the battle for your prospect’s heart and mind is half-won. If you don’t have that, then your copy does more heavy lifting than it should (and might fail under the weight).

So what makes a great offer?

There’s no one “offer that rules them all”, but these four qualities can help pinpoint what will work best for you:

1. Solves a problem or satisfies a desire relevant to your prospect
2. Is useful, interesting, educational, or entertaining for your prospects
3. Easy for the prospect to consume or use your offer
4. Looks polished and professional (this is less important, but still helps)

A lot of landing pages follow the “Rule of Many” – make things general enough and you’ll be attractive to a bigger pool of people. Unfortunately, it only helps to make your landing page look “meh” to more visitors.

To create a landing page that converts, you have to do the opposite. Aim to reach just one type of person. That’s it. Sure, that one group is a much smaller total… but when they arrive on your page, they see something they instantly want. They read copy tailored especially for them. And your offer is something they can’t ignore.

That’s not the only part to the “Rule of One”. You should also make just one offer on your landing page. Multiple offers – like “join my email list”, “grab my book”, “check me out on Instagram” – makes people have to think, and most times they’ll just click away instead.

5 seconds, 10 seconds, 30 seconds – these numbers get thrown around when talking how long you’ve got to reel your reader in. Without worrying which number is “right”, the message is clear: you have to grab attention, and you have to do it quickly. Start with these:

• Use a headline that speaks to your one reader, offers a benefit, or highlights a pain
• Add an eye-catching thumbnail image if you have a video
• Start with an action-packed story
• Visuals that lead the reader’s eyes straight to where you want them to focus on

Note: this doesn’t mean you suck people in with scammy or “bait-and-switch” tactics. Grabbing attention doesn’t help conversion if you put visitors off-side.

A lot of paid ads simply direct visitors to the business’ homepage, instead of a specific landing page. That’s often a big mistake for a number of reasons, but one of those is that a homepage or normal web page is typically filled with links. And on a landing page where you want people to do just one thing, links or buttons to other pages or actions act as distracting “leaks”.

It boils down to basic psychology: people just can’t help clicking links (it’s a curiosity thing). So if you have any that don’t support your page goal, scrub them out immediately.

This is another principle that’s not strictly copy-related… but it’s not not copy-related either! Landing pages are great places for testing different ideas. Some might be a hit, others will fall flat… and it’s often not the ones you expect!

A big trap that anyone writing copy can fall into – whether experienced professionals or enthusiastic amateurs – is thinking their idea is the best, without proving it. It might be… but it might not. This is why savvy marketers and businesses test several versions: they don’t want to just rely on a judgment call. They want the cold, hard numbers to back it up.

A Landing Page Copwriter… With The Scars To Prove It!

When I started as a copywriter years back, landing pages seemed easy. Follow the rules, write the copy, and presto! Results would just happen. I was dead wrong.

As it turned out, learning the principles was easy. And some were simple to follow. But understanding EVERYTHING that made a landing page work was a different story – and one I didn’t get for some time.

(The power principles above are universal, but there are dozens of smaller, situation-dependent rules and guides that tripped me up.)

Thankfully, I learned from that early experience. And things changed as I upped my game over the next few years…

I did the work! Writing lead gen or landing pages is the only real way to sharpen your skills and learn what works

Today, businesses from all around the world use my experience and skill to help build landing pages that bring in leads galore.